


Stay Wildcard Crossing

by ShippingsandDeamons



Category: Persona 5
Genre: Cat!Akira, P5 protag got turned into a cat
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-11-19
Updated: 2019-11-27
Packaged: 2021-02-13 09:13:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,768
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21491893
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ShippingsandDeamons/pseuds/ShippingsandDeamons
Summary: An unknown shadow cast and unknown spell, turning the thieve's leader into a very literal black cat. It might not be so bad, if he didn't end up getting picked up by one Akechi Goro, the young detective persuing him and his team.
Comments: 5
Kudos: 57





	1. Nya

Well… It could have been, worse. Akira was thanking whatever god was looking out for him at the moment, because someone saved him the humiliation of his teammates seeing him land on his face. In his defense, having been in this form for only a few minutes, Ren hadn’t had the time to properly adjust to being a cat yet. So, I had to be understandable he hadn’t acquired Morgana levels of grace yet.

Still, he would likely tell no one about this.

“Joker!” Oracle’s voice called in his ear, edges of her voice giving into static. “can you hear me?”

“Yeah, loud and clear,” He meowed back.

“Oh thank god!” Their navigator sighed. “I lost you single for a moment, but now I’ve found it! We’re heading your way- just sit tight!”

“On it, not much else I can do at the moment.” He replied, the last bit coming out dry and sarcastic.

“Hu? Did something happen?”

“Something like that. You’ll all see when you get here.”

In the time it took the other phantom thieves to reach him, Akira had managed to relearn how to walk properly on 4 paws, tail swaying back and for as he paced. He heard the Monabus long before the van with piercing blue eyes for headlights came into veiw, the rough purr of his engine echoing off the grated, weathered walls of mementos.

Skull hoped out first, boots thumping against the chirped, uneven ground with a dull ‘thud. “Hey, Joker! Where are ya’!” He called, peering around.

“Down here.” He chirped back with faux enthusiasm.

“What the!” Skull shouted, drawing the attention of the other thieves.

“Aww,” Panther cooed, scooping him up into her arms. “Joker, you look so cute like this!”

“I will agree with Panther, you’re aesthetics as a cat are quite fitting.” Fox agreed.

“Hehehe~ I always knew you were a cat at heart!” Oracle snickered.

“Yeah, yeah, laugh while you’re leader’s down,” Akira rolled his eyes.

“Well, anyway,” Mona huffed, likely jealous of the attention Akira was now attracting from Panther. “Do you know what happened?”

“A shadow happened,” He replied. “It wasn’t like anything we’ve seen before, and when I tried to interrogate it, all I got was gibberish, then it cast some fort of weirds spell and poof, I’m a cat.”

“Hmm, lemme’ scan you real quick,” Oracle hummed, tapping her chin with a finger.

“I agree, we should try and learn all we can about this new status effect before leaving mementos, let’s fall back to the entrance for now.” Queen advised.

Akira let Noir pick him up, setting him on her shoulders instead of pressing him to her chest like Panther, As Mona turned back into his bus form. They hadn’t wandered in too far; only to the last floor of the second block, and they were a high enough level that most shadows left them alone. The trip was thankfully uneventful. Akira was certain that if they got into a fight, he’d be as useless in battle as he would be rattled.

When they reached the base of a familiar perpetually stopped escalator, the thieves’ all piled out and Mona returned to his cartoonish cat form. Why did he have to become a literal cat and not something like Mona? At least then he could hold his knives and gun!

When everyone was safely at the top, Noir set him down and everyone took a few steps back to give Oracle room to work. Akira sat quietly, the other thieves lounging about against the subway walls, as Oracle taped away at hyper speeds, hunched over her holo-keyboards as she peered at streams of data through red goggle lenses. With little else to do as Oracle pattered away, and with a good moment of donwtime as he waited, Akira looked inward to his personas. There was a breif moment of quiet that had him worried he might be cut off from his masks’ voices, but as soothed when his mind’s ear picked up the familiar noise of several voices talking at once. Taking a quick count, Akira confirmed all pf his personas were there, and he could feel the familiar presence of Arsen, even if he didn’t have the thief’s mask on him at the moment. He wasn’t entirely helpless.

“Alright!” Oracle grinned, pattering of keys tapering out.

“Ya’ figured somethin’ out?” Skulled asked.

“Yep, it should be fine for our feline leader to exit the metaverse with us, he won’t change back though,” She explained. “buuut, the effect will last a week at most, then he’ll be regular ol’ Joker again.”

A week, it wasn’t too bad. He’d miss some school, but Kawakami would cover for him. Sojiro already knew their status as the Phantom Theives of Heart, so he would just roll with it. They wouldn’t be able to do proper thief work, though, but they’d already cleared out their list of Mementos quests a few days ago, today was just a training excursion.

Phasing back into reality, just as Futaba had told them, ren was still stuck as a cat. Standing shoulder to shoulder with Morgana in his regular cat form, the thieves’ leader was pleasantly surprised to find he wasn't any smaller than his fellow feline. In fact, he was just a bit bigger than the other, not by much, but just enough to be visible. Unlike Morgana. Akira’s fur was black from the tips of his ears and tail all the way down to his toes, his fur was longer than Morgana’s short and cleak coat, and curlier too. His eyes were still their soft shade of charcoal.

It was a little after school got out, the sun still boldly in the sky. Akira knew they hadn’t been in the metaverse for too long, but it felt as though the mementos trip had been longer than just a few hours. Meh, it was likely just the weirds time difference between the two realities.

Stretching, Akira didn’t feel the need to head straight back to Le Blanc just yet. He wanted to explore, like Morgana did when he was spending time with people, see how different familiar places were not that he was a cat.

“We should probably head back to Le Blanc, let Boss know what happened to he can contact the school.” Ann said.

“I agree, besides, I could go for a cup of coffee anyhow,” Haru added.

“Hmm, a cup of Boss’s fine coffee, I second that,” Yusuke agreed.

“Mrah, I want to walk around for a while,” Akira replied, stretching.

“Are you sure that’s wise? Will you be able to find your way back?” Makoto asked.

“Yeah, I’ve explored most of Toyo at this point, I know my way around,” he responded.

“I can vouch for him on that, and I’ve done my fair share of walking around this city on my own, as a normal cat, it isn’t much different,” Morgana added. “It might be a bit harder to see signs, but there are a surprising number of things to climb to rectify that problem.”

“Here, lemme’ do something real quick,” Futaba said, kneeling down.

The redhead pulled something from her coat pocket, a red collar. Fiddling with the buckle, she slipped it around him and attached it with ease, buckling the leather strap lightly so the fine material didn’t bite into the skin of his neck. Grinning, she pulled her hands away and admired her handiwork.

“There, no one’ll think you’re a stay, and I put a tracker on it!” The hacker boasted.

“Now I won’t get lost.” Akira pointed out.

“Hmm, fine, we’ll go on ahead and explain the situation to Sojiro-san.” The older girl conceded. “Don’t stay out too long.”

“I won’t!”

What could go wrong?


	2. Downpour

What could go wrong, hu? Famous last words.

Akira huffed as he tried to shake any water he could from his thick coat of fur, the wonderous pelt that once shielded him from the fall chill was now a wet blanket helping the icy air nip at his very bones. Akira glared up and the stormy clouds, the pouring rain showing no signs of letting up any time soon. He vaguely remembered the weather report for today, that the weatherman did say there was a high chance of showers in the evening. He’d forgotten that, between getting separated in mementos, and then getting turned into a cat.

Huffing again, Akira tried again to shake the remaining water from his curly fur. He was starting to envy Morgana’s shorter, straighter fur, his own coat seemed to hold onto water like a sponge. Caught up in his frustration, he almost missed the splashing of someone hurriedly running through puddles. Fat drops of water dribbled down from the weave of branches above, many of them falling with a heavy ‘plop’ on his head and spine. Akira let out a yelp, screaming out a few choice words.

“Oh, my…”

Akira looked up, he recognized that soft voice.

Akechi Goro stared back at him, garnet eyes full of wonder. The teen detective had his briefcase held flat over his head as a makeshift umbrella, wavy locks of cinnamon brown hair plastered to his forehead and cheeks by rainwater. His clothes were as thoroughly soaked as Akira’s fur, wrinkled and ruined, giving the teen a far scruffier and lax look than he’d ever let anyone see. In that moment, Akira also became aware than Akechi normally wore makeup, the rain had long since washed any concealer on his face away, exposing dark abysses of eyebags along with a few blemishes. The shark shadows of bruises decorated his left cheek and parts f his exposed neck, there was even one over his right eye.

“Hmm, you’ve got a collar, so you’re not a stay,” Akechi murmured. “Mmm, you either got lost on your way home, or have the same impeccable sense of weather I have, and got rained on while out on the town.”

“Well, at leased I don’t look like a drowned rat, [retty boy.” He quipped back.

Akechi simply chuckled, he words nothing more than simple meows to the detective’s ears. It was likely that Akira’s own voice worked much like Morgana’s did, in that unless a person saw him speak in the metaverse, they couldn’t understand him. Before he could think any further about it, gloved hands lifted him up by the armpits. Akechi carefully guided his feline body through the opening made in his pea coat, cradling him gently against his chest and rebuttoning his coat. The material was soaked, but it offered him some shelter from the rain, he was granted even more when Akechi angled his body forward, acting as a partial shield from the rain.

With Akira now secured to his chest, Akechi resumed his run through the rain. Back in mementos, the raven hadn’t liked it when Ann had cradled him to her chest, her boobs pressed painfully against his body. That wasn’t a problem with Akechi. The brunette’s surprisingly narrow chest was flat, and very soft to curl up aganst. Akira found he had no complaints at all about the situation. 

After running in the ran for a while, Akira felt Akechi slow to a walk. Peeking his head up past the collar of the beige pea coat, he found that the detective was almost right outside the front entrance of an apartment building, the kind that was more than two floors high. It was nothing too modern, as proven when Akechi had to manually open the front door leading into the lobby, but it was certainly nicer than some places. Tired and wet, Akechi slumped against a wall as he waited for the elevator, uncaring about the puddle forming beneath him.

“I think we both could use an hour-long hot shower, after that.” Akechi said, an edge of suppressed humor trailing at the edges of his words.

The apartment Akechi lived in was, clean and spacious. And not because it was a particularly large apartment. It was a one-bedroom with one bathroom, a living room and attached kitchen, and that was it. It felt big because it was so empty. There was a couch and a low coffee table. Akechi set his metal briefcase on the kitchen counter deviding the kitchen from the living room. He kept Akira bundled up in his coat as the brunette kicked off his flooded shoes and moved into the bedroom, which was equally impersonal. A futon was folded up in the corner, a work desk up into another corner, a bookshelf right next to it, and a dresser over by the closet. The bookshelf was packed with thick textbooks and an assortment of different novels, the quick peek he got lead him to believe they were all mysteries. The very top shelf was not occupied by books, but instead had a set of worn Featherman R figures, similar to the ones Futaba owned, a stuffed rabbit who’s off white fur had seen better days, and a badge of some kind propped up against a wall.

“Let me grab us some towles and we can warm up.” Akechi said sofly.

Aquireing a pair of fluffy white towles, the brunette moved on to the bathroom. Opening up his coat, he set Akira down, he began stripping off his soaked clothes, peeling the wet fabrif off of his clamy skin. Akira already suspected the detective had some kind of ties to the metaverse, and seeing him strip only confirmed it. The bruising continued as far down as his legs, most of them the fresh black and blue kind. His left forearm was wrapped in bandages that he was now removing. Burns of various kinds, and the scarred remaines of old wounds littered his milky skin. There was a large square of gause tapped to his right side, and a smaller one on his right thigh. A few smaller wounds on his chest had been stitched shut, the skin around the wound still freshly angry.

The sight was nestolgic in a sense, Akira had seen similar wounds on his friends after fighting in the metaverse, wounds that were quickly patched up by healing magic and the odd recovery item here and there. Was this how they’d look like if they didn’t have Morgana, Ann, and Makoto there to quickly heal them? Akechi hissed as he carfully coaxed the babage of the wound, the skin of his forearm broken by frostbite and a set of 4 parallel gashes. There was more pain as he carfully prired the gauze from his side and leg, exposing what looked like a ginshot wound and a stitched up gash.

Akira was woken from a daze he’d acidentally fallen into by the sound of running water. Holding a hand out under the steady stream, Akechi wated until he deemed it sutably warm before scooping Akira back up and hoping into the shower.

As anticipated, the warm water was bliss aganst his fur.


	3. Lonesome

The moment both he and Akechi were in the shower stall and the door was closed, the later proceeded to collapse, back against the wall opposite to the showerhead. The muscles in the brunette’s legs and shoulders remained stiff and taught, even under the pleasant assault of hot water. Up close like this, Akira could acutely see how tired and glassy his companion’s red eyes were. Had they always been like this, and he’d just never noticed? Or was the newly seen emptiness something new?

“Damn him,” Akechi muttered, bitter and dark. There was a tense, strained expression on his normally calm and inviting face. The mask was off. “Honestly, the bastard acts like I’m sitting on my ass all day instead of trying to balance my school life with my work one, and be a minor public figure at the same time!” He groaned, leaning his head back aganst the wall. “Sorry that I can’t be in 3 places at once, and sorry I can’t be more instantaneous! The metaverse doesn’t exactly work that way.”

Just as they suspected, Akechi was aware of the metaverse, and most likely a persona user to boot. Without seeing what he looked like in the other reality, Akira couldn’t say definitively that Akechi was the black-masked person Kaneshiro warned them about, but he did mention using the metaverse for an employer who was also aware of the cognitive world’s existence. Akira wiggled out of the older boy’s arms and pressed up against a bent thigh, purring. It would be a good idea for him to wait out the week with Akechi, it would give him the chance to learn more about the teen detective, and what his relation to the metaverse was.

There was the question of how he’d contact the others about this plan, but he still had on Futaba’s special collar, so they knew how to find him. Akechi began scratching behind an ear, and he leaned into the touch. 

“Hmm, well, at least someone here appreciates me,” He huffed, cracking an exhausted smile.

The brunette’s body was still wound up tight, like a spring under pressure. There was a red tint to the edges of his wounds, but it appeared to be nothing worse than the usual inflammation that came with open wounds. It was so strange seeing wounds like those outside the metaverse. Between the combined efforts of Ann, Makoto, and Morgana, as well as his own dia using personas, none of the phantom thieves left mementos with anything worse and small scratches. 

Not only did the detective likely wander around the palace of the collective unconscious alone, it was clear his persona was incapable of using healing spells. That, was very dangerous, actually. Akira knew from experience just how easily damage could pile up, and how fast wounds seemed to multiply. Noticing where his eyes were wandering, Akechi chuckled.

“Yes, the do like nasty, don’t they? Don’t worry, most of these are from last month.” He reassured the supposed feline. “I’m normally very good about avoiding trouble, unlike the thieves, it’s much easier moving around as a single person.” His smile soured. “Unfortunately, even I get sloppy when I’m tired and stretched thin, and unlike those merry band of thieves parading about, I don’t have anyone but myself to watch my back at the end.”

Akira shivered despite the warm water cascading down around them. Hearing the black bitterness dibble from his words had the not-cat worried. Even at the start, he’d had Morgana, and even Ryuji to some extent, watching his back and assisting him when the battles got grueling. It was a scary thing to picture, wanding the dark hellscape of mementos all alone from the start. Akechi likely had awoken to his powers alone, meaning he’d learned everything alone. Unlike Akira, who’s stated with Morgana to guide him. It was the black feline who’d taught him the basics of theiving, and even gave them the option to steal hearts rather than kill.

Though he’d rather forget, the day when Suzui jumped, Akira had been ready to kill Kamoshida for his sins. Ann had also been out for blood, it was only knowing the bastard would have a fate worse than death awaiting him that stayed her hand in the end.  
He’d felt a similar bloodlust when Maderame admitted to just about murdering Yuuke’s mom. The bluenette had admitted to feeling an intense fury at that moment as well.

Lost in thought, he almost missed when Akechi stood up, groaning as he forced his tired, stiff body up. His muscles were no longer so tense, but the brunette wasn’t exactly the picture of relaxed either. His shower companion picked up a partly empty bottle of what was likely shampoo. The label was semi-fancy, indicating that it was something other than a generic cheap brand. Akira was never one for specialty products, finding the generic store brand stuff to work just fine for him.

Akira snorted as the subtle fragrance of strawberries and coconut wafted down from above. Despite knowing Akechi wouldn’t be able to understand him, or maybe for that exact reason, Akira was sorely tempted to tease the detective of his choice of hair care products. Most guys weren’t eager to smell like a pastry, after all. Before he could open his jaw and meow out a few choice words, Akechi knelt down hand began rubbing suds into his fur, suds that smelled awful familiar. Oh, Akechi was washing his fur with his shampoo suds.

“I am not going to take any chances, considering I don’t know the last time you were bathed, and that you were out in that rain for a while.” Akechi chided as he tried to wiggle free. “stip struggling, you’re fur is a complete mess!”

Pride in shambles, Akira gave in.

Thankfully, when his fur was rinsed off the fancy shampoo, he wasn’t forced to endure a second go with the conditioner. He watched passively as the brunette rubbed vanilla-scented conditioner into his hair before grabbing a bar of soap and a rag. Akechi was careful as he scrubbed around the edges of torn flesh and the perimeter of burned skin, wiping away sweat from the day’s grind. Rinsing his body thoroughly of soap and conditioner, and making sure Akira was equally clean, he lingers for several long minutes under the torrent of warm spray, face the most relaxed he’d seen it the entire day.

Sighing, Akechi stood up once more and shut off the water. He opened the door to the shower and stepped onto the chilly laminate tile, Akira trotting after. A fluffy white towle was draped over him As akechi knelt down to towel water from his fur. When his cuat was an exceptable level of damp that was unlikely to freeze him or drip all over the place, He was let go while the brunette toweled off. 

The faux cat watched as his companion wrapped the used towwle around his waist before reaching into a medicine cabinet to pull out a tube of antibiotic cream and several fresh rolls of bandages and gauze. Akechi hissed as he worked the cream into his open cuts and over the scabbes blisters of his burns, moving quickly and efficiently before covering each wound in a tight wrap of bandages, or taping down a patch of gauze.

Fow how long had Akechi been doing this? The way he worked methodically from wound to wound, the expert deftness in how he bandaged himself, Akechi had been doing this for a while. For at least as long as the thieves had operated, maybe even longer.


End file.
